So the state is dumping more writing tests this year. This is more of the same from previous years, and likely to be repeated in the future?don’t we all believe that?

As Ms. Neely points out, there are endless excuses. I would suggest that we simply acknowledge that there ever will be excuses, because that’s the way the game is rigged. Sadly, it favors the employee, not the customer.

Rather than continue hand-wringing in the face of reforms aimed more at preserving school jobs than at breaking down persistent student ignorance, I suggest the market option?the walking option.

A truly radical, truly effective, and truly parent-directed alternative to the juggernaut of public education ignorance is not more charter schools, or magnet schools, or private schools or home schools, although any and all of these can be fine options, under the right circumstances.

Changing K12 education for the better can be accomplished by allowing choice, but market-wide choice rather than “school choice.”

Radical change in favor of parent choice and quality in education could be accomplished by one simple but far-reaching reform: dump compulsory education laws. This is most eloquently argued by John Merrifield in his book School Choices: True and False.

People will willingly fund good public schools. Bad ones will see their student numbers bleed away to better options. Fund them publicly if you will, but don’t force kids to attend, or parents to send kids. Will parents abandon their kids to ignorance and helplessness? Unlikley, especially if we believe that parent demands are driving many of the calls for more, higher quality or individualized programs of various types in the current public schools.

No law requires us to engage in commerce, but we do because it is so self-evidently in our own interest. Education, especially good education, is in the the same category.

There is room for every option for payment, including tax credits (all of which are not equal) once the process begins. There is also room for every educational standard as a precondition for employment or higher education, once the process begins.

What there is no room for under a non-compulsory education system is non-education, in the guise of schools.